Apocrypha
Throughout history, there have always been reports of strange, horrific creatures hiding in the darkness that surrounds our society. Stories of magic and unearthly powers abound through our collective consciousness. From where, however, do these ideas come? Why do we instinctively fear the dark? Darkness is a doorway, but it is one that we cannot open. Without the key, we begin to consider the darkness as a wall, a permanent, immovable fixture of our world, but our subconscious mind still recognizes the doorway's true purpose. We instinctively know that something, somewhere, has the key.
Outside our perception, beyond the veil of shadow and reality, is another world, one that overlays our own in a twisted mockery only glimpsed in the most fevered dreams of the clinically insane. The denizens of this Otherworld occasionally breach the barrier when the stars are right, wreaking havoc in our world and seeding stories of crazed beasts that disembowel children who disobey their parents. These intrusions are quickly dealt with by the rare few who have the knowledge and courage to battle the darkness. Throughout the ages, these heroic individuals are all that stood between our peaceful existence and mind-bending horror. Until now.
On November 18th, 2010, the unthinkable happened. The wall between the two worlds melted away, allowing the corrosive, alien essence of the Otherworld to bleed into our reality, corrupting and warping everything it touched. Humans became monsters within seconds of exposure, and began to seek the flesh of their former acquaintances. Not out of a need for sustenance, but out of an overwhelming desire for raw materials to fuel their own transformation. Indescribable entities from the Otherworld seeped through the shadows, complicating the already horrific event. The embodiment of nightmares crawled from beneath beds and devoured children. Gibbering death crept out of closets and alleyways, from the backseats of cars and from within the walls. Unable and unwilling to accept or understand what was happening, human society collapsed in a single, fateful night.
Those who managed to survive did so not through strength or charm, or even skill or intellect, but through sheer luck and random circumstances. These survivors found themselves alone and desperate in a world filled with malice and hostility, populated by sinister beings that lurk hungrily in the dark. The only things that protect these rare few are their resourcefulness, their strength of will, and light. As the sun rose on that blood-soaked dawn, the entities retreated to the shadowy corners of the now-desolate cities. They fear the light.
And now, more than ever, we fear the dark.
